If your visit to the Classic Rotary Phones Forum was enjoyable or helpful, you may
tell us by making a small donation. The donation can be made safely via PayPal
and will help to off-set the costs of the Forum operation. Thank you!

The phone is a remarkably complex, simple device,
and very rarely ever needs repairs, once you fix them. Dan/Panther

Even with most of the discussions about deciphering AE codes and narrowing the manufacturing dates down based on patent numbers being located here in this Child Board, it can be very difficult to locate specific information within all of the posts.

This topic will just have the best information that we have available on the topic, a quick guide to breaking the codes. The topic is locked to avoid discussion here, there are other ongoing topics where relevant discussion takes place. Moderators can add info here as they see fit.

If you have information that you would like to add here please add it to one of the above topics or PM me or any moderator.

Please everyone feel free add whatever you like to these ongoing discussions. Deciphering this stuff is accomplished through comparing what any and all of us have in our collections and analyzing the order codes and manuals.

The first part of the AE 40/50 Base Codes that we feel has been deciphered is the relation between the two common ringer styles used in these phones and the change from the 40xx and 50xx Base Codes to the 41xx and 51xx Base Codes. Jack Ryan pointed this out awhile ago saying that he felt that the introduction of newer "Type 45" (smaller) High Impedance Ringers also related to the change in codes from 40xx to 41xx and 50xx to 51xx numbers in the first Section of the Base Code.

I have 39 phones in my Base Code records that have enough information to properly check this out. Here is the results of the survey:

Notes:-Most of my records of AE 47 (4111) sets had Z rather than L or N coding and the other numbers don't directly identify them as 40xx versus 41xx sets so only the L/N coded sets were included here.-Two 51xx AE50 sets DO HAVE low impedance ringers in them but they are both SL ringers in sets coded as originally having frequency ringers so these ringers have been swapped out later and the low impedance ringers must have been all that was on hand.

Most of the” Second Code Sequences” are only three digits/letters long but I noticed that occasionally one would have an extra letter on the end. The first letter is related to the dial and the second/third numbers (or SL letters) relate to the Ringer. Then I noticed that every time there was an extra letter it was on a colored phone. It should be mentioned that several colored sets didn't have the extra letter on the base to indicate a color. Indicating a colour in the codes may not have been a standard right from the first colored sets made.

Here is a typical Black 40 Base Code and then a Chinese Red 40 Base Code with the extra letter, an "F" in this case indicating “Chinese Red”:

Black Bakelite 40 - L4123 ASL TY7Chinese Red 40 - L4125 DSLF SJ7

Below is a list of the colors with the Base Code letters indicating the color that we know of. The Catalogs didn't suggest ordering phones using these letters for the various colors but instructed to just specify the color desired.

I went through the AE 4055, 4055A, 4055C, 4055D & 4055E Sales Catalogs and came up with this consistent list of available colors and names for these colours. The four colours G- Royal Blue, H-Orchid, J-Nile Green & ?-Maroon showed as being unavailable in AE 35 and AE 50 model wall phones until after WW2 when the 4055E Catalog showed all colors available for AE50's now as well. So, has anyone seen an AE35 in any of those four colours?

One could make the assumption that “A” was reserved for Black once manufacturing the new colours began though I’ve never seen an A so they didn’t bother to add the A to black sets going forward. The two derivatives of bakelite production, Walnut and Mahogany would seem to me to be logical “first colours” they experimented with and therefore they may have become colours B & C. That makes 10 colors in all and if lettered consecutively the 10th one would be J which we have determined is Nile Green.

We need some more colored Monophone examples to learn more. I have found anywhere between 2 and 5 phones of each of the identified colour codes so far and there have been no conflicting colors/codes. It would be a large undertaking to change the coloured shell of these models to a different colour so while 80’s and 90’s are quite often seen with mis-matched colour codes on the base, so far I have not seen this at all in these older models. No black sets have been found with a color code so far, just the colours other than black.